US2025217902A1PendingUtilityA1
Building Dispatch Stockpiles with Requisite Chemical Component Compositions
Est. expiryMar 28, 2042(~15.7 yrs left)· nominal 20-yr term from priority
Inventors:Michael BeswickPeter MahAbdul QadirRobin VujanicAndrew John HillSteven SchedingSalah Sukkarieh
G06Q 10/06315G06F 17/16G06Q 50/02G06Q 10/087G06Q 10/04
53
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Claims
Abstract
A network product planner ( 29 ) ascertains material levels required at dispatch stockpiles ( 15 ), for example by checking upcoming orders for material to be shipped by transport ships ( 19 ) to end customers. Tolerance bands for chemical components required at the dispatch stockpiles are then ascertained. The tolerance bands are defined by upper and lower expected value control limits for each chemical component. The network product planner ( 29 ) then passes the collected information to the optimization engine ( 29 a ), which finds the values of decision variables in the form of weights, that minimize variance of the chemical components in the dispatch stockpiles, whilst being constrained to comply with the specified tolerance bands of the chemical components. The network product planner ( 29 ) then passes the weight values to the rail dispatch controller ( 23 ) in messages ( 14 ). The rail dispatch controller ( 23 ) refers to the weight values when generating schedules for the trains ( 13 ) so that as they travel over rail network ( 11 ), trains ( 13 ) pick up material from mine stockpiles ( 9 ) and deposit material to dispatch stockpiles ( 15 ) in accordance with the weights to thereby create the dispatch stockpiles with chemical components complying with the tolerance bands and with variance of chemical components minimized.
Claims
exact text as granted — not AI-modified1 . A method of building one or more dispatch stockpiles having one or more chemical components within specified tolerance bands, the method comprising:
determining chemical component compositions of a number of mine stockpiles; determining values of decision variables, the decision variables indicating mine stockpiles and amounts of material to transport therefrom to build the dispatch stockpiles to meet the specified tolerance bands with minimized variances of the chemical components; operating an optimization engine configured to determine the values of the decision variables and effecting transportation of material from the mine stockpiles to the dispatch stockpiles in accordance with the determined values of the decision variables to thereby build the one or more dispatch stockpiles with minimized variance of the one or more chemical components.
2 . The method of claim 1 comprising, determining, in each mine stockpile of the number of mine stockpiles, levels of material and expected grades and variances of the one or more chemical components therein.
3 . The method of claim 1 comprising, ascertaining the specified tolerance band for each chemical component in the dispatch stockpiles as a range extending from a lower expected value of the chemical component to an upper expected value of the chemical component.
4 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the decision variables indicate proportions of dispatch stockpiles to be acquired from various of the mine stockpiles, to minimize the variances of the one or more of the chemical components of the dispatch stockpiles whilst constrained by the specified tolerance bands.
5 . The method of claim 1 , comprising inputting to the optimization engine:
the levels of material and the expected grades and variances of the one or more chemical components thereof in each mine stockpile; and the tolerance band for each chemical component for the dispatch stockpiles.
6 . The method of claim 5 , comprising receiving the values of the decision variables from the optimization engine.
7 . The method of claim 1 , comprising determining if the values of the decision variables are feasible with creation of dispatch stockpiles meeting the specified tolerance bands.
8 . The method of claim 7 , comprising upon determining that the values of the decision variables are feasible with creation of the dispatch stockpiles meeting the specified tolerance then effecting the transportation of the material from the mine stockpiles to the dispatch stockpiles.
9 . The method of claim 1 , including deriving blending targets from the values of the decision variables comprising a number of vehicles to be sent between mines and dispatch centers to carry out dispatch stockpile build proportions according to the values of the decision variables.
10 . The method of claim 5 , wherein
the one or more dispatch stockpiles comprise one dispatch stockpile; the one or more chemical components comprises one chemical component; and the optimization engine is configured to find the decision variables w according to the following quadratic program:
min
w
w
T
Σ
w
(
4
)
s
.
t
.
W
T
1
=
1
w
≥
0
w
i
*
T
p
s
≤
T
i
∀
i
∈
I
.
where Σ is a covariance matrix of the chemical component composition of the mine stockpiles and T ps is a level of material required at a dispatch stockpile, constrained by the specified tolerance bands.
11 . The method of claim 5 , wherein
the one or more dispatch stockpiles comprise multiple dispatch stockpiles; the one or more chemical components comprises one chemical component; and the optimization engine is configured to find the decision variables w according to the following quadratic program:
∑
j
∈
J
w
j
T
Σ
w
j
(
5
)
s
.
t
.
w
j
T
=
1
∀
j
∈
J
w
i
≥
0
∑
j
∈
J
w
ij
*
T
j
p
s
≤
T
i
∀
i
∈
I
and constrained by the specified tolerance bands, where T ps is a level of material required at a dispatch stockpile, constrained by the specified tolerance bands.
12 - 14 . (canceled)
15 . A mining system including a transport network, a network product planner and a vehicle dispatch controller for dispatching vehicles to transport material over the transport network from mine stockpiles to one or more dispatch stockpiles, the network product planner being configured to:
ascertain material levels required at the dispatch stockpiles including required tolerance bands for one or more chemical components at the dispatch stockpiles; determine values of decision variables that minimize variance of the chemical components in the dispatch stockpiles whilst being constrained to comply with the required tolerance bands; the vehicle dispatch controller being configured to: generate schedules for the vehicles based on the values of the decision variables thereby effecting transportation by the vehicles of material from the mine stockpiles to the dispatch stockpiles in accordance with the determined values of the decision variables to thereby build the one or more dispatch stockpiles with minimized variance of the one or more chemical components.
16 . The mining system of claim 15 , wherein the network product planner determines the values of the decision variables using an optimization engine that is constrained to comply with the required tolerance bands.
17 . The mining system of claim 15 , wherein the network product planner is configured to derive targets for the vehicle dispatch controller from the values of the decision variables and transmit them to the vehicle dispatch controller in blend target messages; or
wherein the network product planner is configured to derive targets for the vehicle dispatch controller from the values of the decision variables and transmit them to the vehicle dispatch controller in blend target messages, and the vehicle dispatch controller generates the schedules based on the values of the decision variables by referring to the blend target messages.
18 . (canceled)
19 . The mining system of claim 17 , wherein the targets that are transmitted from the network product planner to the rail dispatch controller in the blend target messages comprise a number of vehicles to be sent between mines and dispatch centers to carry out dispatch stockpile build proportions according to the values of the decision variables.
20 . The mining system of claim 15 , including one or more in-pit mine planners, wherein the network product planner is arranged to provide input to the one or more in-pit mine planners for the in-pit mine planners to build mine stockpiles for improving the set of dispatch stockpiles that can be constructed from the mine stockpiles.
21 . The mining system of claim 15 , wherein the vehicle dispatch controller is configured to receive information from the network product planner indicating from which mine stockpile material is to be taken, how much material is be taken and to which dispatch stockpiles it is to be transported.
22 . The mining system of claim 15 , including assay stations configured to perform assays on the mine stockpiles and generate expected values of concentrations of chemical components of the mine stockpiles and expected variance values thereof, wherein the assay stations are configured to transmit said concentrations and variance values to the network product planner as assay messages; or
including assay stations configured to perform assays on the mine stockpiles and generate expected values of concentrations of chemical components of the mine stockpiles and expected variance values thereof, wherein the assay stations are configured to transmit said concentrations and variance values to the network product planner as assay messages, wherein the network product planner is configured to receive and process the assay messages to generate mine stockpile to dispatch stockpile movement messages and transmit them to the vehicle dispatch controller.
23 . (canceled)
24 . The mining system of claim 16 , wherein
the one or more dispatch stockpiles comprise one dispatch stockpile; the one or more chemical components comprises one chemical component; and the optimization engine is configured to find the decision variables w according to the following quadratic program:
min
w
w
T
Σ
w
s
.
t
.
W
T
1
=
1
w
≥
0
w
i
*
T
p
s
≤
T
i
∀
i
∈
I
.
where Σ is a covariance matrix of the chemical component composition of the mine stockpiles and T ps is a level of material required at a dispatch stockpile, constrained by the specified tolerance bands.
25 .- 28 . (canceled)
29 . An ore stockpile build method by which material from I mine stockpiles is transported under control of a rail dispatch controller to create one or more dispatch stockpiles j∈J of ore having one or more chemical component compositions within specified tolerance bands, the method comprising:
monitoring the I mine stockpiles to determine levels of material T i ∈R + available at each mine stockpile i∈I of the mine stockpiles I;
performing assays at each of the mine stockpiles i∈I, the assays producing expected grades (π i ∈R |C| ) and variances (σ i 2 ∈R |C| ) in respect of one or more chemical components of a set C of chemical components C={c 0 , . . . c n };
ascertaining material requirement levels T j ∈R + at each of the one or more dispatch stockpiles j∈J;
determining values of one or more decision variables w i,j ∈R + to minimize a variance of at least one of the chemical components in the at least one dispatch stockpile under constraint of the specified tolerance bands, wherein the decision variables indicate a proportion of a dispatch stockpile j to be sourced from a mine stockpile i to effect the minimizing of the variance;
transmitting determined values of the decision variables to the rail dispatch controller;
operating the rail dispatch controller to effect transportation of material from the mine stockpiles to the dispatch stockpiles in accordance with the determined values of the decision variables to thereby build the one or more dispatch stockpiles with minimized variance of the at least one chemical component composition.
30 . (canceled)Join the waitlist — get patent alerts
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